Full service broadcasting systems typically include a series of subsystems that communicate through use of a widely accepted protocol, namely the Video Disk Control Protocol (“VDCP”) or the Media Object Server (“MOS”) protocol. One such subsystem is a video-recording-and-playout server, a common example of which is the K2 server provided by Grass Valley™ of San Francisco, Calif. Another subsystem is a video-management system such as Bitcentral of Newport Beach, Calif., which manages a plurality of video-recording-and-playout servers by organizing and moving video components back and forth between the servers and a video-component database (i.e., to store a video component once it is recorded, or to retrieve a video component for playback). Video-recording-and-playout servers typically communicate with video-management systems using the VDCP protocol.
Another subsystem is a newsroom-management system, which joins previously recorded video components (that were, e.g., retrieved by a video-management system) with live video components, graphics, voiceovers, and/or other features or add-ins, to produce a news program. An example of a newsroom-management system is the Essential News Production System, a/k/a the Electronic News Program System (“ENPS”), which is leased for use by stations from the Associated Press (“AP”). Newsroom-management systems typically communicate with video-management systems using the MOS protocol. A news program is then ultimately selected by a scheduling-and-sequencing subsystem for commercial broadcast (on, e.g., a television channel).
With the recent popularity of electronic publish points (“publish points”) such as those associated with social media services (e.g., Facebook® (hereinafter “Facebook”) and Twitter® (hereinafter “Twitter”)), it has become common to publicize and solicit interest in a given news program by creating content that relates to the news program, and submitting that content to an associated publish point. For example, content from or associated with a news program may be used to create and submit content to a Facebook page that is associated with that news program (which is then accessible by a user via a website, application, etc.). That content may also be submitted to other related publish points such as a Facebook page associated with a particular media personality that is affiliated with that news program, a Twitter feed for the station on which the news program is broadcast, and/or one or more other options.
The specific type of content that is submitted to a given publish point typically depends on the configuration of the publish point, but in most instances includes text, hyperlinks, and/or media (such as video components (or embedded code for video players, applications, etc.) and/or images). Certain publish points such as those described above often also provide their users with an ability to respond to a publish-point submission, thereby encouraging and facilitating interactive communication.
Because it is often desired that content that is submitted to publish points be provided to end users in close temporal proximity to the time when associated content becomes available on other types of media (e.g., on-air broadcast, web videos, video players and/or applications on connected devices, and the like), or at least that such submissions have a “real-time” feel, content is typically submitted to publish points around the same time that the associated content becomes available (e.g., is shown) on the other media. For example, in the broadcasting industry, it is particularly important that publish-point content about broadcast-news programming appear in close temporal proximity to when the news program airs on television (i.e., to coincide with a live television broadcast). This is due in part to the fact that the publish-point content is used to drive interest in the news program through other media.
Accordingly, a user (e.g., a producer, newsroom social-media director, an otherwise-designated user (hereinafter, collectively referred to as a “producer”)) that is affiliated with the provider of that news program typically creates and manually submits content to various publish points while the news program is being broadcast. However, this approach presents several issues. First, news programs are often fast-paced and loaded with content, making it difficult for the producer to keep up with submitting timely content. This is particularly an issue when a producer is submitting content to multiple publish points (e.g., multiple pages or feeds associated with one or more social-media services) at substantially the same time. Further, news programs are often modified shortly before or even during a broadcast to address timing issues, technical issues, and/or other issues. As such, a producer's ability to create publish-point content in advance of a news program is limited, due in part to the practical realities of the ways in which news programming is created and/or the transient time-sensitive nature of the news content itself.
Another disadvantage of the above-described approach is that the process of creating publish-point content is often tedious and time-consuming. Indeed, in addition to drafting appropriate text (i.e., text that is associated with the content that is broadcast in the news program), the producer often needs to search for and retrieve a relevant video component and then include it in the publish-point content. Obtaining relevant video components in this environment is particularly difficult due to the fact that traditional broadcasting systems have a segmented design.
As described above, prior-art newsroom-management systems are not optimized for tight integration with playout servers and/or video-management systems. As such, when a producer is using such a newsroom-management system (i.e., to view content that is currently being broadcast or scheduled for broadcast on a news program), and decides to create publish-point content that includes a related video component, the producer must leave the newsroom-management-system environment, access a separate video-management system (that has access to a video-component database), and search for and retrieve the appropriate video component. Thereafter, the producer must draft appropriate text, upload the retrieved video component, and submit the content to the appropriate publish point. This approach presents similar issues when producers seek to include other relevant media (e.g., images) in their publish-point content, as such media is similarly not available within (nor easily attainable by) that newsroom-management system.
Due to the complexity and time required in carrying out the above-described approach, it is common for publish-point content created in this environment to be submitted in an untimely fashion and/or to contain errors. For example, the submitted content may include substantive and/or typographical errors in its text, and may also or instead include undesired media (e.g., media that is not relevant to the applicable portion of the news program), mismatched and/or inaccurate media (e.g., media that contains extra content that is not related to the applicable portion of the news program and/or does not contain relevant content that is intended to be emphasized by the publish-point content), and the like.
Yet another problem with the above-described approach is that it may present security issues. In order to enable one or more producers to submit publish-point content, each such person is typically provided with login credentials for a set of predetermined publish points. However, because the list of applicable publish points may be large and may frequently change, it can and often does become difficult to manage these login credentials. As one example, in the event that a producer is terminated or removed from a news program project, the login credentials for all associated publish points must, in order to prevent unauthorized access, then be changed and provided to all other producers who continue to require such access.